I left home early to make sure I would have extra time in case I were to get lost.

The uncertainty of getting lost seems to call for the subjunctive. Sounds stuffier, but the meaning is certainly clear.

I agree that this is the clearest version yet. The more clear (read: correct) we get, the less we leave for the "understood" context such as in ...if I got lost, which I guess is technically past tense and literally by itself means "if I actually historically got lost some time in the past". But in the example, the subjunctive quality is conveyed by the context.

And conversely, the more we leave the context to convey, the more relaxed the correctness can get. It all depends on who one is addressing and what impression the speaker wishes to impress upon them.

sluggo wrote:Seems to me it's dependent on the phrase "in case". With that in there, #1 works. If in case was replaced with a simple if, then #3 works best, and the whole sentence flows better:

I left home early to make sure I would have extra time if I got lost.

-but either one denotes a conditional. Using both In case and would have seems redundant.

I don't understand how you see it being redundant. Think of it as a conditional sentence (essentially it is). In a conditional sentence, you have both an if/in case clause and a result clause, with 'woud + bare infinitive' in the second conditional and 'would have' in the third conditional. We are dealing with the second conditional here as you know.

What you see, yet can not see over, is as good as infinite. ~Thomas Carlyle

I left home early to make sure I would have extra time in case I were to get lost.

The uncertainty of getting lost seems to call for the subjunctive. Sounds stuffier, but the meaning is certainly clear.

But surely "I got" is already subjunctive here. "I got" can be the past subjunctive, as well as the past indicative, of "get".

Yes, it is the past subjunctive, which is required in the second conditional (past perfect subjunctive for third conditional). Sap's example is just an alternative construction--which is still the subjunctive, but which stresses the unlikelynature of the situation. Both 'should' and 'were to' are used for this.

What you see, yet can not see over, is as good as infinite. ~Thomas Carlyle

I left home early to make sure I would have extra time in case I were to get lost.

If I had owned a GPS, I would have had more time to study the subjunctive, the understanding of which would have led to peace among all nations, ample food supplies throughout the civilized world, and the end of global warming.

Enigma wrote:Sap's example is just an alternative construction--which is still the subjunctive, but which stresses the unlikely nature of the situation. Both 'should' and 'were to' are used for this.

OK, but "I should get lost" or "I were to get lost" make the sentence sound very wordy, even in writing. I much prefer "I got", which is clear, concise and gramatically correct. (And maybe getting lost wasn't so unlikely!)

Sluggo's point (with which I agree) was that "I had extra time" is justified as past indicative if we say "in case" rather than "if". In other words, I left home early to ensure that I did (in fact) have some spare time; I would be able to use this in the event of my getting lost. If "I had" is indicative, then "in case" is not a conditional; it is equivalent to something like "for the eventuality that". "Got" would still be past subjunctive.